Tynan's Anger

A century later, a still-shocking trial provides criminally uninteresting theater


Those who purely value the socially conscious in theater will no doubt be thrilled by Terranova, a new drama by Pamela Monk and Dennis J. Loiacono. The play certainly explores an interesting premise, but Terranova struggles from a script that lacks any flow in dialogue and dramatic pacing. The script is so awkward that it ends upper boring than moving, resulting in a wasted opportunity.


Terranova takes an unconventional approach to the old world/new word dilemma of the American immigrant experience, and Terranova's premise and characters creates an interesting set of dramatic opportunities. On the one hand, the old world ethics of Josephina (Laura Lamberti) prevents her from fully acknowledging the ramifications of the horrific sexual abuse she grows up with. On the other hand, Josephina is in the Bronx, not Sicily, and the luxury provided by a fairer justice system produces a nearly irreconcilable differences in expectations. The ensemble of characters provide an interesting mix, from the establishment America of William Randolph Hearst (John Gazzle, who lacks anything resembling the gravitas you'd expect from Hearst), the compassionate but materialistic reporter Dorothy Dix (Raissa Dorff), and Josefina's counsel John Palmieri (Steve DiNardo), stuck in between the Italian ethical code and the opportunities provided by America.

All this would make a fascinating drama with a less painfully turgid and shallow script. Monk and Loiacono sacrifice anything resembling nuance in order to advance its larger conceptual themes. The cast constantly struggles to find the right tone, and almost no actor really succeeds, as much a fault of the script as the actors' lack of chops. The one standout is Lamberti as Josephina, the only actor able to provide raw emotion to seep through the scripta wordy script (her perpetual rants in Italian, Lamberti's native tongue, certainly help.)

Terranova is based on a real-life trial that was brought back to attention in an article by playwright and bioethicist Jacon M. Appel in 2004. Appel's article focused on just how unnerving the case was to most who had heard it previously. Public acknowledgment of sexual abuse was practically unheard of before then, and almost every facet of the trial, from its use of psychological profiling and the temporary madness argument, the application of yellow journalism to an individual's life, and Terranova's controversial acquittal, mostly a result of jury nullification.

All of this is dramatic enough on its own, and leaves open plenty of room for theatrical innovation. The play however, takes no risks whatsoever, and falls back on blunt describing the implications rather than showing them. Monk and Loiacono didn't necessarily need to resort to shock tactics to get the point across; then again, I've never seen a play that glossed over sexual abuse so carelessly. Terranova's failures end up making a better case for going into riskier territory. Because the script is so insufferable, and because the only thing remotely risqué about the play is its occasional racial epithet (epitheths that were thrown around much more carelessly in 1906) Terranova only weakens any sympathy an audience can feel for characters who were much more interesting in real life. Granted, Terranova suffers from a weak production, but there's so little to be enthusiastic about with this script that I doubt anyone could redeem it.

Terranova by Pamela Monk and Dennis J. Loiacono. Directed by Theresa Gambacorta; costume design by Natasha Daniels; lighting design by Adam H. Greene; music by Michela Musolino and David Pinkard.

Starring Steve DiNardo (John Palmieri), Raissa Dorff (Dorothy Dix), Lucia Grillo (Concetta Reggio), John Gazzale (William Randolph Hearst), Laura Lamberti (Josefina Terranova), Joseph LaRocca (Gaetano Reggio), Joseph Mancuso (The Alienist), Margo Singaliese (Maria D'Angelo), Emilio Tirri (Giuseppe Terranova).

Terranova's last fringeNYC Encore performance runs tonight, September 22, a 7 p.m. in the Actor's Playhouse (100 Seventh Ave. South). Ticket Information: 866-468-7619; http://www.fringenyc-encoreseries.com

Labels: 2009-2010, Dennis J. Loiacono, Laura Lamberti, nyc fringe festival, Pamela Monk, terranova, theater review

Whatever the flaws of Complete, a new play by Andrea Kuchlewska now playing as part of the FringeNYC Encore series, its intelligence cannot be questioned. Complete has a unique conceptual framework that displays the delicate balance between intellect, emotion, genuine religious experience and our inherent suspicion of those who claim to have all the answers. The religious implications of the American self-help guru, a trend which started in the '70s and has only become more widespread, have not to my knowledge been given this kind of treatment in a play. Certainly, none have applied the self-help guru to the graduate student experience while not directly invoking the names Osho or Timothy Leary.

Wrapping its framework around 4 players, Complete features two linguistics graduate students Eve and Micah (Lucy Owen and Zac Jaffe) who bond over their closeted affinity for prescriptive grammar. Also featured are Jack (Dylan Price), flexing through the roles of two competing, self-help groups as well the professors who mock Eve and Micah's meandering, and Evie (Sophia Nicole Rodyakin), and Abigail Breslin-like combination of the play's inner child and Greek chorus. Evie. Complete's stylistic touches, including non-linear scenes, audience engagement, and an eerie prologue, are not particularly new, and in some cases take away from the play's overall strength. Certainly the lackadaisical direction by Birgitta Victorson didn't help. Nonetheless, it's very difficult to think of the play working any other way. The confusion of emotional and intellectual intelligence is central play's ability to remain entertaining and interesting. The occasional confusions were a smart price to pay for the right general tone.

At the center of the play are Eve and Micah, the two characters that really drive this play to another level. A not-necessarily romantic relationship is sparked by a discovered their mutual disgust for "bad grammar," despite linguistics' devotion to being purely descriptive in regards to language usage. How Eve and Micah view their roles in graduate school, however, couldn't be more different. While Eve's passion for language is inalienably tied to her thirst for knowledge and emotional health, Micah is much more concerned with his status in the field and not embarrassing himself. What's particularly striking about Complete is its complicated and unconventional take on the effect these two motivations have. Eve is more willing to put herself out there in her devotion to the subject matter, and her obsession with details ultimately sours her relationship with Micah. Micah, on the other hand, feels a compulsion to hide his intelligence out of fear of public speaking and scorn. His insecurity becomes so paralyzing that he needs to turn to a guru to fill an emotional void, much to the disgust of Eve, who has a bad history with gurus.

The differences between the "The Training" and "The Program," the two competing, generic self-help groups are never fully explored. Instead, Kuchlewska focuses on the indistinguishable emotional tactics used by each group, involving repeated catchphrases, deceptive jokes and colloquialisms, and the occasional screaming and strong-arming. Kuchlewska doesn't focus on the behaviors of the converted; There's no Heaven's Gate or Jonestown parallels here. Instead, she focuses on the margins of the conversion process, making it more understandable, if not relatable.

Complete contains a full gamut of attitudes towards cult-like behavior and academic pursuit, without applying any particular value set to them. No doubt audiences will be willing to add their own beliefs to Complete. Yet, Kuchlewska has audience biases fully covered with her smorgasbord approach. All this could have easily resulted in a very messy, unwieldy production. In fact, Kuchlewska errs on the side of intelligence at the expense of natural dialogue, and there are at least two scenes that would be best cut out. But by providing pockets of pathos and humor in the script, aided by the veiled intensity of Owen and Jaffe, Kuchlewska turns Complete into a smart play that intimately grasps theater's ability to become an intellectual platform, without becoming a soapbox.

Labels: 2009-2010, Andrea Kuchlewska, complete (play), Lucy Owen, new york, nyc fringe festival, theater review, Zac Jaffe

Some actors would worry about building their career on the portrayal of a psychopath. Mental instability is one of the quickest paths to being typecast, and while it’s built some careers (Christopher Walken), it’s destroyed others (Anthony Perkins).

Bill Connington is the creator and star of the bone-chilling, critically lauded adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ 1995 novella Zombie.  (The show opened at Theater Row on Saturday after a stint at the 2008 NYC Fringe Festival.)  Connington admitted that “people tend to look at you and see something you do well.” What separates Connington’s Quentin P. from any run-of–the-mill serial killer you can see every week on Law & Order is what he described as the “bland, methodical personality of someone you wouldn’t look at twice,” yet who is capable of committing horribly gruesome acts — homemade lobotomies, child molestations, murders — with absolutely no remorse.

Connington, who grew up in Cincinnati but received his training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, was drawn to the British system because he found it “very practical and pragmatic” in terms of voice and body work. Connington made sure to point out that “I am not a method actor” and noted, “It’s part of my personality to have an approach that is a little more objective.” When playing a character as violently disturbed and sociopathic as Quentin P., keeping a relative distance from his performance may be in Connington’s best interest. “I feel so bad when I hear about Heath Ledger and how he basically played two psychotics in a row. I mean it will always affect you somehow, but the British have this thing about leaving it in the theater…I’ve read that Boris Karloff, with all the terrible characters he played, was apparently the gentlest, nicest guy.”

Zombie was as much of an intellectual challenge for Connington as it was a theatrical one. His previous one-man show, Dating Rituals of the American Male, was a quirky work of indie theater that explored ten different characters from ten different decades in reverse chronological order. Connington then set out to adapt a work of literature by a great living American author.  He had originally desired to produce a series of short stories as monologues. After first choosing eight of Oates’ hundreds of short stories to adapt, he read Zombie at Oates’ own suggestion.

Oates had originally intended Zombie for the theater, but its eventual length turned it first into a New Yorker short story and then a novella. The book received mixed reviews upon publication and has been out of print for several years (Ecco is republishing it in September), but Connington described Zombie as “the only thing I’ve read as an adult that actually made me frightened.” Connington told me he could only get through the first three-quarters of the book after reading it the first time. 

The ability to create that sense of terror for adults in the theater is similarly rare, but Connington’s adaptation produced some of the strongest reactions of any show in the 2008 NYC Fringe Festival. Audiences were legitimately terrified; at the matinee production I saw, a mostly elderly audience had dropped jaws in a mix of shock and revulsion. Connington describes one moment towards the end of the play where he consistently receives from the audience a “particular sound” of “an intake of air followed by a sardonic half-laugh,” which I remember hearing as well. He described the key to getting this response as similar to radio theater, “where the horror takes place in your mind.”

On the phone, Connington was charming, humble, and completely different from the character he inhabited on stage. But as much as his methodical approach to acting distanced him from forming a personal connection to Quentin, it also created a strange level of synergy with the character. “The scary thing,” Connington told me incredulously, “was that I had an immediate understanding of Quentin.” Midway into the rehearsal process, director Thomas Caruso pointed out to Connington that the actor had not asked Caruso for one single character note. “Maybe I should be worried about that?” Connington joked. In fact, the play's staging, a table and a couple of chairs with a notably eerie blow-up doll as a stand-in for Quentin’s multiple failed zombies, were all conceived by Connington immediately.  He had never even considered taking the play out of the monologue format, as Oates herself had feared he might do in the adaptation process.

As for a possible explanation for the actor-character synergy, Connington mentioned with notable neutrality that “we’ve all met a lot of narcissists in our lives, and Quentin is a narcissist to the nth, nth, nth degree…this is a guy who doesn’t realize that other people have thoughts that are separate from him.  A lot of the time, he doesn’t mean to be mean, he’s just totally oblivious.” There’s a fine line between detachment and utter lack of empathy, and while Connington was disturbed by how natural it was to tap into that side of Quentin, he made sure to note that many audience members were even more disturbed to learn that they too could follow Quentin’s logic very easily. 

In fact, the greatest accomplishment of Oates’ novella, which Connington’s production also succeeds in getting across, is that even with the horrible acts Quentin is capable of committing and shamelessly admitting to in his diaries, his way of thinking is not something completely alien to human reason, but perhaps just a side of humanity that is rarely expressed in such a grisly way. One of the major themes in Oates’ prolific career has been exploring the darkest recesses of human experience to find its traces in humanity’s roots.

"When I first told people I was adapting a work [about] a serial killer," Connington said, "the common reaction was ‘how could anyone do something so horrible?’…I’ll be very interested to see what psychiatrists who come to see the show have to say."

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Zombie runs through March 29 at Theater Row, 410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Aves. Tickets can be purchased at TicketCentral.com. This interview was originally published on Blogcritics

Labels: bill connington, evil, interviews, joyce carol oates, method acting, nyc fringe festival, play adaptations, stanislavsky, theatre row, zombie

Weird always has a place in theater, and the Fringe is one of the only opportunities in New York for strangeness to truly run wild. Creena DeFoouie, a show that claims to be “Ab Fab meets Addams Family by way of Rocky Horror,” is both stranger than the Broadway conversion of the last and as surreally funny as Ab Fab.

As the titular character, revenging her sister Mary Annabel’s murder by killing mental patients (basically, a less morose Sweeney Todd), Charlotte Barton-Hoare is the weirdest female British performer we've seen this side of Helena Bonham-Carter. In terms of her performance as Creena, Barton-Hoare has as much skill as she lacks shame. That only means good things for the production.

What hurts it is the lack of a coherent story. True, Rocky Horror didn't have much of a plot either. But although Creena at least tries to build a somewhat coherent narrative, the result feels rushed and tangential when it should just feel fun. Empathy is clearly not the emphasis in such a bizarre play, but if you’re going to introduce a lost-love subplot and actually solve the murder you introduce, common courtesy is to make the events clearer. As it stands, the show wavers between a weird variety show and a classic revenge plot.

That doesn’t mean the action is all that hard to follow, and at moments the play can take hilarious, manic turns. With a dildo fight between Creena and clueless copper Superintendent Hardon (James Hoare), a creatively choreographed murder of a patient (also played by Hoare), and a pitch-perfect closing image, there’s more than enough creativity throughout Creena DeFoouie to keep the show thoroughly entertaining.

The show took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm last summer, and now with a successful run in New York, it should be seeing a larger production in England sometime soon. Maybe around Halloween.

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The final Fringe show I saw took me through the largest range of emotions and opinions of any show I saw at this year's Festival. At first I was somewhat angered by The Redheaded Man’s unassertively staged hallucinations, by mentally unstable architect Brian (David Jenkins), of the title character (Bruce Bluett). I am generally offended by caricature portrayals of mental illness in any medium, and in addition to playwright Halley Bondy frequently playing Brian’s borderline schizophrenia for laughs, we also get a Cheri Oteri-like pill-pushing quack shrink (Dr. Jones, played by Michelle Sims). In sum, after the first half hour, I was more disgusted than moved.

Against my expectations, the play sneaked up on me. I had figured The Redheaded Man to be a Harvey-like play where a mentally unstable man hallucinates a friend (in this case a visible imaginary friend). What followed, however, was more the unraveling of a psychological history, in the vein of Equus. The result was a somewhat more nuanced, if rather preposterous, depiction of mental illness. Ultimately, The Redheaded Man looks at how people - both the sane and the far from sane - deal with the traumatic but crucial moments in their lives, and how those moments can even make us better people.

Brian and Dr. Jones are not the only people who need to spend some significant time on a couch (though they’re the only two who would be better off in a straitjacket). Brian’s best friend, roommate, and adopted brother Jonathan (James Edward Shippy) constantly wavers between the two poles of romance and familial ties. The lack of a normal young adult life - Brian has taken it from him - has clearly taken its toll. Jonathan is the most well-adjusted individual in the play, which for someone in his situation constitutes nothing short of a miraculous feat of strength of character. Not surprisingly, every time we see Jonathan, we want to see more of him.

Less can be said for Lydia (Bondy), however, a seemingly innocent girl smitten with Brian who frequently borders the line of stalking. While we ultimately realize that Lydia’s attraction to Brian is rooted in guilt about their linked childhoods, her plan to meet Brian is too carefully crafted to be considered anything other than pathological. There is a lot of discussion about how Lydia might be as deranged as Brian. Less talked about is whether Lydia’s presence is legitimate even though it could emotionally crush an already vulnerable individual.

Still, the play’s conclusion about what not to tell Brian, and why, is the emotional crux. It's what ultimately redeems an otherwise inconsistent play, one backed by a rather smart and solid production. Yet, if the play is really going to go places, that ending sentiment needs a stronger, more fleshed-out emphasis. The Fringe is exactly the place to realize this.

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Creena DeFoouie by Charlotte Barton-Hoare. Directed by James Hoare; choreography by Haruka Kuroda. Starring Barton-Hoare and Hoare.

The Redheaded Man by Halley Bondy. Directed by Jessica Fisch; set design by Lara Fabian; costume design by Nicole V. Moody; lighting design by Paul Toben; sound design by Mira Stroika; video design by Jesse Garrison. Photo by Garrison. Starring David Jenkins (Brian), Bruce Bluett (The Redheaded Man), James Edward Shippy (Jonathan), Michelle Sims (Dr. Jones), and Bondy (Lydia).

Both shows were performed at the New York International Fringe Festival. More information about the shows can be found at http://www.creena-defoouie.co.uk/ and http://theredheadedman.com/.Creena DeFoouie photo by Reg Beaudry.

Labels: 2008-2009, charlotte barton-hoare, creena defoouie, halley bondy, nyc fringe festival, the redheaded man, theater review

At this year’s New York Fringe Festival, we had the chance to compare two book-to-play adaptations by the same author. Joyce Carol Oates’ haunting, psychological horror stories would seemingly make for good theater, and at the Fringe, Bill Connington’s Zombie and Justin Swain and Jess McLeod’s The Corn Maiden provided alternate glimpses of how to approach such a task. In my estimate, the former adaptation, which focused more on the individual and the psychological realm, succeeded more than the latter, which took a more stagy, technological approach, in which much of the complexity got lost. That being said, there was still a lot to take from both productions, and the chance to compare them is a rare privilege.

Zombie would seem to be the less theatrical of the two works, as it focuses on the internal dialogue of a convicted sex offender and deeply disturbed serial killer in the vein of Jeffrey Dahmer. Connington’s adaptation is smart to stick with a monologue, but adds just enough theatricality, with a chess board and a brilliantly ghoulish blow-up doll, to prevent the text from trumping the stage. Connington, who also starred as the killer, Quentin P., gave a legitimately frightening turn - with a flawless upper Midwest accent - of a man who, alienated from his community and his family, and without any outlet for his sexual and human needs (including a need to dominate), aims to create a "Zombie" in the form of a homemade lobotomized slave.

Of course, Quentin botches most of his lobotomies, and here is where his rage and violent tendencies truly show themselves. There’s no doubting that Quentin is psychotic, unfit for society, and a danger to those around him. What is in question, both in the play and the novella, is just how far Quentin’s psychology and psychohistory strays from that of a normal, sane individual, and how much of his twistedness is innate as opposed to society’s doing. The questions are left intentionally ambiguous, and some were overwhelmed by the gross, horrific aspects of Zombie’s text and staging. But unlike your standard horror schlock, there was enough intelligence here to befit a Nobel Prize finalist.

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While The Corn Maiden is certainly a more expansive production, incorporating many more theatrical techniques, to me it seemed less enthralling and shallower than its smaller, more modest counterpart. The Corn Maiden focuses on a similar theme to Zombie's: a deeply disturbed individual kidnapping and attempting to kill an innocent victim for a spiritual goal unacceptable in today’s world. But the real heart of the story, the spiritual identification of early-teen girls with ancient American Indian practices, is either diluted with other plot elements or simplified to the point where it starts to feel cheap.

On the one hand, the schoolgirls are rightly portrayed as immature imitators unaware of just how disturbed their actions are. Yet ringleader Jude (Maria Teresa Creasey) could have used a little more back story and a more complete characterization, while her followers Denise (Heather Bonahoom) and Kate Shine (Anita) were reduced to classic henchwomen without any hint of individuality. Meanwhile, we had to deal with a slew of subplots about the kidnapped girl’s mother’s alcoholism, a false accusation against a teaching assistant, and the media’s vulture-like coverage of the story. We get it, the contemporary world can’t handle pre-modern spirituality. With an overly long, overly turgid production and poorly-executed tech design, however, the real substance of the play gets lost.

In adapting a writer as distinctly focused on the inner world as Joyce Carol Oates, nothing says the internal has to be the only focus. But as Zombie and The Corn Maiden both show, that inner world needs to be the primary focus of any such production. That doesn’t necessarily mean that literary drama has to be on a small scale, but it does show that when psychology is key, big budget flash can't substitute for real human drama.

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Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates. Adapted and performed by Bill Connington; directed by Thomas Caruso; original score by Deirdre Broderick; lighting design by Joel E. Silver; scenic design by Josh Zangen. Photo by Tony David

The Corn Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates. Adapted by Justin Swain and Jess McLeod. Directed by Jess McLeod; art direction by Nickey Frankel; lighting design by K.J. Hardy; costume design by Wendy Yang; sound design by Sam Brodsky. Photo by Frankel.

Starring Maria Teresa Creasey (Jude), Heather Bonahoom (Denise), Kate Shine (Anita), Hana Kalinski (Marisa), Erin Roberts (Leah), Jessica Day (Avril) and Michael Markham (Mikal)

Both shows have completed their runs at the New York International Fringe Festival.

(This review was originally published on Blogcritics.)

Labels: bill connington, jess mcleod, joyce carol oates, justin swain, nyc fringe festival, the corn maiden, zombie

For one reason or another, third-wave feminist sexuality has had an awkward transition to the stage. Perhaps that lack of relevant material is what makes The Boy in The Basement by Katherine Heller, a hilarious, smart play about liberal arts college nymphomania, seem so fresh and welcome. With the more traditional Feminazi being performed not too far away at the Players Theater, The Boy In The Basement addresses feminine sexuality in a manner that is always tasteful and often poignantly real. Anyone who’s shared a complicated living arrangement with oversexed early-twentysomethings knows the drill, and this is a play that can bring in young people and repulse the Greatest Generation types. In other words, it’s exactly the kind of theater we should be seeing more of.

The Boy in the Basement purports to be a live action romance novel, the format in which it was originally written. Indeed, the story conforms to all the conventions of the genre, including flowery sexual narration and an intentionally formulaic plot. While the trappings of such a structure may limit the play to Fringe-like venues, there’s a reason Boy was converted into a play. Enacting a story that would otherwise merely be described allows the play to constantly poke fun at romance novel conventions, ultimately giving it more authenticity. The format also lets the audience meet some particularly inspired and perfectly complementary characters that make up this Macalester College student house.

We have the dominant, aggressive Venezuelan Xandra (played by Heller), who uses her foreignness—complete with brilliant broken English dialogue—to her sexual advantage. We also have Aurora (Anna Stumpf), raised as a hippie, with more Eastern sexual leanings (at least in theory). And we have the tough and practical if still lascivious Clarissa (a standout Lynne Rosenberg), who defines her sexuality as “some old fashioned who’s -ya-momma.” All three vie to seduce Lance Speedworth, an extremely attractive and large-packaged intruder into their home (he was stealing to support his dying sister) whom they punish by making him their slave—and not the kind of slave who performs traditional labor, if you get my drift. Contrasting with all the other three is Anna (Meghan Powe), a virgin farm girl from northern Minnesota who, while staying completely oblivious to the intentions of her housemates, falls in mutual love with Lance.

Anna’s sexual awakening is the only part of the script where I feel the writing could have been better, but Heller’s done more than enough to prove herself with The Boy in the Basement. The play is at least partly autobiographical—in the playwright’s note, Heller contends that “her housemates wanted [her] to tell you that none of the stuff in this play actually happened even though it did." It is unclear whether Heller can go beyond an homage to the romance novel, and this may end up being the lone or rare play in a young romance novelist’s career. But with her sharp eye for social and sexual dynamics, there’s a lot of room for growth.

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Kansas City Or Along The Way has one quality that almost no other Fringe Festival shows has: it’s a revival, or at least a pseudo-revival. Rising playwright Robert Attenweiler’s Depression-era tale centering around a chance meeting on a southern Ohio train car was first produced as a workshop two years ago, before Attenweiler had much else on his résumé. Structurally, the play recalls Faith Healer and Homebody/Kabul in its use of combining multiple characters' monologues to form an unreliable narration and mask the true plot details until the play’s end.

But what Faith Healer and Homebody/Kabul’s structure had that Kansas City does not are distinct starting and ending points between each monologue. In those plays, as in most great monologue plays, we could spend enough time with a character to fully build relationships with all the characters in the picture. While the constant rotation between the monologues of Joseph (Adam Groves) and Louise (Rebecca Benhayon) certainly makes the situation more confusing, it also prevents the play from building any sort of momentum or sense of attachment. The narrative and chronological relationship between the two monologues is unclear until the climactic meeting scene at the end, which serves as the play’s only moment of dialogue. It’s not surprising that this is the most compelling portion of Kansas City Or Along The Way, as we can finally see Joseph and Louise as human beings, as opposed to intermittent performers.

Part of the blame for the choppy feeling has to go to director Joe Stipek, who fails to provide the show with the precise timing of cues that the script requires. Additionally, while Groves and Benhayon do a respectable job in their performances, they don’t project well, which really kills the show in an acoustically challenged space like the CSV Cultural Center’s Milagro Theater. Groves also plays some Woody Guthrie-inspired songs he co-wrote with Attenweiler, one of which opens the play. The awkwardness of this opening sets the tone for the rest of the awkward timing that follows. The plot itself is pretty interesting, but its redeeming qualities are mostly betrayed by Kansas City’s structure and execution.

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The Boy In The Basement by Katherine Heller. Directed by Neil Balaban; set design by Sean Tribble; lighting design by Grant Yeager; original music by Jon Quinn. Starring Hller (Xandra); Nick Fondulis (Catherine DuCheval); Tom Macy (Lance Speedworth); Meghan Powe (Anna); Lynne Rosenberg (Clarissa); Michael Solis (Randy, Felipe); and Anna Stumpf (Aurora) Photo by Luke Ratray. The remaining performances are 8/21 at 11:45 p.m. and 8/23 at 10 p.m. at the Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam St.

Kansas City Or Along The Way by Robert Attenweiler. Directed by Joe Stipek; set design by Bret Haines; lighting design by Justin Sturges. Starring Rebecca Benhayon (Louise) and Adam Groves (Joseph). The remaining performances are 8/17 at 12:30 p.m., 8/18 at 7:45 p.m., 8/21 at 3:15 p.m. and 8/23 at 9:45 p.m at the Milagro Theater at the CSV Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk Street. Photo by Robert Attenweiler.

Tickets to both shows can be purchased at www.fringenyc.org

This review was originally published on blogcritics.

Labels: 2008-2009, kansas city or along the way, katherine heller, monologues, nyc fringe festival, robert attenweiler, romance novels, the boy in the basement, theater review

I did not expect much from Cake and Plays…But Without the Cake. There were multiple technical mishaps throughout the first of the three cake-less plays by Jono Hustis. But more importantly, that first play, Cow and Shakespeare, had very few redeeming qualities. Featuring Michael Hartney as a Shakespeare in half-modern, half-Elizabethan dress stealing all of his plays from a mostly human, inconsistently depicted cow (Michael Micalizzi), Cow and Shakespeare is a cross between a half-assed spoof of the Shakespeare authorship debate and a marginal account of writer’s block. The play would have better served as merely an exercise for Hustis to break out of a creative slump than as something worth a full production.

In the final two plays, however, Hustis began to show his genuine talent and promise as a playwright. The first, Monsoons, is a stark, blackly comedic vignette about a failed first date that, despite being frequently hilarious, never lets its audience laugh too long. Monsoons succeeds exactly where Cow and Shakespeare fails. It takes a solitary theme—what should and should not be said when making a first impression—and distorts it in a manner wholly digestible for the playwright, cast, and audience alike. Monsoons is the kind of play you could teach classes with, and any teacher who uses this play would be a damn good one in my book.

The final and longest play, In the Name of Bob, is a finely executed one-act about a beleaguered woman who meets her guardian angel. The only play of the three to offer fully fleshed-out characters, it has two excellent ones in Alicia and Marvin, played with remarkable realism by Darcy Fowler and Andy Gershenzon even as their performances frequently touch the absurd. Gershenzon in particular stands out as the oddball, nearly spastic guardian angel Marvin. Marvin’s unpredictability is a constant toy for Gershenzon and director Daniel Horrigan to play with, until Hustis uses the characterization for a brilliant punch line ending. Fowler also shines as a woman disinclined to talk to any stranger, let alone one claiming to be her guardian angel, and who sinks into an aloof-but-needy persona rather gracefully.

In the Name of Bob doesn’t stray too far out of the ordinary for a fallen guardian angel story (the kind we see on film much more frequently than on the stage). It also has an extremely unfortunate title. But what In the Name of Bob lacks in ingenuity, it makes up in charm and execution.

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The Grecian Formula, by Carter Anne McGowan, is much more likely than most Fringe Festival shows to come out of the Fringe with a larger production waiting. It’s got theatrical in-jokes seeping out of its pores at every moment. It had the audience roaring, and played with theatrical themes quite poignantly. Just about every stage convention was lambasted, from the 11 o’clock number to the play-within-the-play (or even play-within-the-play-within-the-play). McGowan clearly has a deep knowledge of theatrical conventions and the absurdity of the producer’s side of the process, and knows which buttons to push to get the most laughs.

As the play progresses, however, the theatrical in-jokes become less and less novel and increasingly tiresome. McGowan tries to work in a plot through the jokes, a poorly fleshed-out story of a slave, Alidocious (Todd Lawson), seeking freedom for his daughter Iphigenia (Elena Dones) from the rhapsode Thespiotis (Kevin Carolan). In a lull in his career, and bemoaning how writing and papyrus has destroyed the young’s attention span (nice touch), Thespiotis is commissioned by the tyrant Peisistratus (Anthony Cochrane, frequently called “Pissistratus”). With no writing skill himself, Thespiotis assigns the task to his slave, who alternately writes too happy or too depressed, depending on Peisistratus’ mood.

What’s more upsetting than the uninspiring plot is the inconsistency and shallowness of McGowan’s use of satire. She obvious grasps the nuances of classical theater, modern dramatic theory, and theater’s contemporary realities. But rather than turning her knowledge into a whole work that really gets contemporary theater’s goat, she comes up with something more closely resembling Forbidden Broadway or, worse, a Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer-level shallow spoof. The Grecian Formula uses lazy, name-dropping references instead of going deeper for satire, and the result is something less fun, meaner, and more stupid and tasteless. It's what Epic Movie would be like as a play. McGowan clearly knows the theater like the back of her hand, but without a more disciplined satire, the play simply feels redundant rather than loving. Her frequent interjection of self-mockery is not an acceptable substitute.

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Cake and Plays...But Without the Cake by Jono Hustis. Directed by Daniel Horrigan. Starring Darcy Fowler (Alicia), Andy Gershenzon (Marvin), Michael Hartney (William), Michael Micalizzi (Cow/Doug), Craig Mungavin (Jack), and Morgan Lindsey Tachco (Theresa). Through August 24 at the Gene Frankel Theater (24 Bond Street). Tickets can be purchased at www.smarttix.com.

The Grecian Formula by Carter Anne McGowan. Directed by Mary Jo Lodge. Starring Jason Rosoff (The Narrator), Anthony Cochrane (Peisistratus), Brian Marino (Sock), Jason Pintar (Bushkin), Ramona Floyd (Phye), Nick Sullivan (Ikon), Kevin Caroan (Thespiotis), Rich Affannato (Tragelistis), Todd Lawson (Alidocious), Jolly Abraham (Caligone), Julie Tokarcik (Clytemnestra), Elena Dones (Iphigenia), Robert Hooghkirk (Oeddy), and Holly Sansom (Laura). Remaining performances occur on August 16 at 7:30 p.m. and August 17 at noon at 45 Bleecker Street. Tickets can be purchased at www.fringenyc.org

This review was originally published on Blogcritics.

Labels: 2008-2009, cake and plays...but withut the cake, carter anne mcgowan, greek drama, jono hustis, nyc fringe festival, one-acts, the grecian formula, theater review

Yesterday, within a span of about an hour, I heard two conflicting reports on how the NYC Fringe Festival affects the city's off-off-Broadway and experimental theater scene. NY1's On Stage program had multiple interviews of theater professionals talking about how the Fringe is the only time in NYC when theaters can really put on a show for the love of the theatrical process more than for profit. An hour later, I see a Time Out New York feature which, in dissecting the problems of Manhattan's downtown theater scene, puts the blame squarely on the Fringe:

“Off-Off Broadway is now Philadelphia,” semi-jokes Ron Lasko, the Fringe’s publicist. While he says gentrification has done a lot of the damage, he admits the festival itself is also to blame. “It’s such a great financial bargain that many indie companies are quite content to produce their new work the Fringe [for a $550 fee] instead of seeking out costlier venues at other times,” he says. “When a showcase costs $20,000 to $40,000 to mount, there’s little room for experimentation.”

In reality, I think there's truth to both these statements. While we see more innovation per minute of stage time now than any other time in the New York season, maybe we should be spreading out that innovation more. I know Mike Daisey and Scott Walters would certainly say so, as this is a microcosm of their problems with the larger national scene in their mind. But at the same time, that may not make financial sense, as Don Hall would argue.

I'm a bit conflicted over this, as I feel the products that come out of the Fringe aren't as good as they're made out to be. Yes, the Fringe is more innovative and smaller, but that doesn't always mean better. There hasn't been a real Urinetown-level success in a long time, and I think that's more of a product of talent than of economics. NYC's Fringe pales in comparison to what's going on in Edinburgh right now. But is that the product of a flawed, fixable system or some other factors (creativity gaps, larger cultural trends, the limits of the medium). I don't think I have a firm opinion here. What about you guys?

Labels: economics, how theater failed america, innovation, nyc fringe festival